Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Sweden’

In the News (#598)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 23, 2015| 8 Comments »

The bottom line is that the criminalization of prostitution is at the root of the risk that sex workers face.  –  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

The Red Umbrella 

Elizabeth Nolan Brown demonstrates her amazing allyship:

Each December 17, sex workers and their allies around the world commemorate the “International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers”…it’s not just psychos and serial killers who put sex workers in danger—a large share of violence against sex workers comes at the hands of cops…who…target sex workers for assault because they have an easy bargaining chip (do what I say or I’ll throw you in jail) and they know the stigma around prostitution makes people less likely to believe these women.  But even cops who are just doing their jobs commit violence against sex workers every day, by arresting and locking them up in jail just for trying to earn a living.  Then, when sex workers suspect clients are capable of violence, we wonder why they didn’t go to the police?  Please…

Social Construction of Eunuchs

The title’s not usually this literal:

…The drug Lupron tricks the hormone in the brain that tells the pituitary gland to produce testosterone.  Dr. Renee Sorrentino is one of a handful of psychiatrists offering Lupron to patients in Massachusetts.  She first saw the drug in action while working in Canada and was amazed at how it changed men’s lives by “turning down the sexual volume of the mind,” allowing patients to work through the causes of their behaviors with therapy.  Sorrentino says that about 20 percent of her current Lupron patients are there voluntarily, often desperate to curb their troubling sexual thoughts or actions.  One of her patients, a 62-year-old man…started taking shots of Lupron after his wife discovered he’d spent the last eight years sleeping with prostitutes.  Identifying as a sex addict, he felt the only way to stop his behavior — and save his 45-year marriage — was to medicate his body into submission…Ehsan Abdulaziz

Droit du Seigneur 

Does anyone actually believe this excuse would’ve worked for a poor man?

A millionaire businessman has been found not guilty of rape after claiming he accidentally penetrated her when he tripped and fell.  Ehsan Abdulaziz…was…accused of forcing himself on the 18-year-old as she slept on a couch at his London flat after a night of drinking.  The Saudi property developer said he had already had sex with the young woman’s 24-year-old friend and it was possible his penis may have been poking out of his underwear when he tripped…Abdulaziz said he had accidentally fallen on the teenager and that she tried to seduce him, and that was how his DNA got onto her vagina…He also told the court it was possible he had semen on his hands after having sex with the young woman’s friend…

His penis “accidentally” entered her?  Seriously?  Has anyone on this jury ever actually had sex?  Or were they all Swedish immigrants?

Little Boxes

Adult human beings with Important Titles actually thought this was something that needed to be discussed:

Driving instructors in the Netherlands can legally trade driving lessons for sex, government ministers have confirmed…Some novice drivers have been learning the rules of the road in exchange for sex, in deals which the conservative opposition party ChristenUnie has labeled “illegal prostitution”.  The Dutch government has been researching the appropriate legal stance on such transactions and concluded that offering driving lessons in exchange for sex is not illegal.  However it would be illegal if the transaction was to be reversed, with a learner driver offering sex for the lessons…

Too Young To Know

This is the same paper which has printed several “lock ’em up” prostitution editorials in recent months:

…Follow the money that Washington state spends intervening with runaway kids and those who skip school, and you might believe this state wants to see them all locked up in jail.  The laws that underpin this embarrassment were passed 20 years ago under what’s known as the Becca laws, named for a 13-year-old Tacoma girl who ran away from home repeatedly, became addicted to crack…fell into prostitution…[and] was murdered [due to the criminalization this paper supports]…the laws have become a vehicle to routinely jail youths.  The state spends millions to funnel noncriminal adolescent rebellion into juvenile courts…Washington sends more truant and runaway kids to jail than any other state by at least a factor of two…in 2014 this state jailed one-third of the 7,466 young people detained across the nation for so-called “status offenses” — running away from home or skipping school…one out of every six kids admitted to a juvenile detention center aren’t there for crimes, but for violating court orders regarding truancy and running away…

Worse Than I Thought

For the “crime” of seeking an adult partner for consensual sex:

Three…men facing gross misdemeanor charges for soliciting prostitution in a public place in [a Minnesota] County have pleaded guilty…The men [were entrapped using fake]…online advertisements for escort services…one…was sentenced to two years of supervised probation, during which he must submit to random searches of his personally owned cellphones or computers…[and] is also not allowed to use Craigslist, backpages.com [sic] or other internet [advertising] sites…[he] was required to [endure a “john school”]attend and…was fined $750…[another]…was [threatened with]…30 days in [a cage if he refuses to endure “john school”]…he…was fined $1,685.  [The third]…was [also threatened with the cage and]…must submit to random searches of his person, residence…vehicles…electronic devices…cellphones and computers, and [must surrender] his passwords to any social networking accounts…[he] was fined $2,085.

Innocence Never Had (#401)

“Rescue bags” are the newest way for the hopelessly ignorant to pretend they’re “doing something” about “child sex trafficking”:

…One hundred rescue bags were put together for child sex trafficking victims in Clayton County.  Donations of personal hygiene items, clothes, socks and blankets were collected from agencies all over Clayton…“Everyone has been 150 percent behind us in this,” said Joanne Southerland, coordinator of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Awareness, Training and Prevention…

Note that Clayton County, Georgia has about 260,000 inhabitants, which means these fetishists fantasize that 8 of every 10,000 female inhabitants are “child sex slaves”.  But I guess one can’t expect much mathematical comprehension from people who think it’s possible to give 50% more of something than there is of it.

New Excuse

Beginning to sound familiar yet?

Sacramento has been selected as one of six locations…to form new federal task forces to combat human trafficking…[as] part of the Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team Initiative, an interagency federal law enforcement initiative aimed at streamlining the…[persecution of people using] federal human trafficking [laws]…Anti-Trafficking Coordination Teams bring together federal prosecutors and federal agents from federal investigative agencies to [coordinate schemes for harvesting victims]…The new team will include personnel from the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Labor.  Other sites selected to form the new task forces are Cleveland, Minneapolis, Newark, N.J., Portland, Maine, and Portland, Ore.

A Tale That Grew in the Telling (#503)

Another good way to give lies weight in the minds of the Great Unwashed: embed them in an infographic.another propagraphic

Note that the absurd “25% of all victims” has now inflated a little.

BDSM (#505)

Naturally. It’s obsessing about what other people do in private which is a sign of mental illness:

University of Alabama and University of Central Florida researchers surveyed over 800 kinky people…and found they were mentally and emotionally healthy…The study, “Psychological Functioning and Violence Victimization and Perpetration in BDSM Practitioners from the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom”, also investigated people’s preferences for BDSM activities and fantasies, and explored whether violence is perpetuated against kinky people.  It joins a growing body of research that refutes the stereotype that people who are kinky are inherently dangerous to themselves and others, which is at the root of the discrimination and persecution that kinky people experience…says Robert J. Cramer…Co-Principal Investigator…”Contrary to popular perceptions, our study shows kinky persons are largely mentally healthy when it comes to conditions such as depression, anxiety and suicide”…

Welcome To Our World (#512)

Sweden isn’t racist, nope.  And neither is the “human trafficking” narrative:

Swedish police have compiled a controversial register, listing information about members of the Roma community found begging on the street.  Roma beggars up and down the country have been questioned about their income, whether or not they beg voluntarily or under duress and if they pay others to be guaranteed a certain spot in a town or city…Roma…had also been asked to show…ID…and to give details about their home towns…Police [pretended]…the [surveillance] was necessary in order to fully investigate potential human trafficking…But Hans Caldaras, a spokesperson for the Roma community, said that the study was an excuse to compile statistics based on ethnicity (which is not usually done in Sweden) and to get Roma “out of the country”.  A previous similar initiative co-ordinated by police in southern Sweden in 2013 was severely criticized by Sweden’s parliamentary watchdog, and those included in the register were awarded damages…

O, Canada! (#596)

You wouldn’t know this was Canadian if not for the specifics:

…a…provincial task force is required to combat domestic human trafficking…over 90% of the young female victims of human trafficking are Canadian-born…the highest incidence of human trafficking in Canada occurs in Ontario.  The typical victim of human trafficking…is the girl next door.  She’s the pretty, popular girl who hopes no one ever finds out that deep down inside she doesn’t feel pretty at all…these young women are psychologically manipulated by their “boyfriends”…the victims are confined, beaten, and sexually exploited by traffickers who earn over $280,000 a year from just one victim…women as young as 13 are moved from one community to another.  In Ontario, this frequently occurs along Hwy. 401.  Their traffickers advertise their services online.  It is estimated that on any given day, 500 of the online sex ads involve victims of human trafficking…

I’m surprised Laurie Scott isn’t more wary about sharing the exact details of her masturbatory fantasies with her constituency.

Now They Notice (#596)

If this is what it takes to get Gay, Inc interested in sex worker rights, I’m all for it:

There are countless reasons many transgender people decided to engage in sex work in order to survive.  Employment discrimination, family rejection, unsafe educational environments and other forms of discrimination all contribute to high rates of economic insecurity and poverty for transgender people…Being convicted of a crime for engaging in sex work leads to negative lifelong consequences…[such as] their ability to attain employment.  And in the many cases where they are placed on sex offender registries, this will affect nearly every aspect of their lives, including where they can live and work…sex workers face constant threats of violence…because of the lack of spaces in which sex workers can more safely engage their clients — and a disproportionate…[number] of those…are transgender women…safe spaces…are constantly being shut down by law enforcement agencies and those involved risk being indicted on punitive criminal charges — as we’ve seen recently by the federal raid on Rentboy.com.  This type of approach further pushes sex work deeper underground…

Read Full Post »

Links #282

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on November 29, 2015| 6 Comments »

All bathtubs should be banned. Just imagine it!  –  King Carl XVI Gustaf

On Thanksgiving night I was relaxing (yes, I’m starting to figure out how to do that) and listening to music on my Tubular Bells-based Pandora station, when I suddenly heard a piece of music whose identity has eluded me for 34 years.  It was the soundtrack for a sequence about gravitational wormholes in an episode of Cosmos, and I adored it; however, it wasn’t included on the soundtrack album and the internet didn’t exist in 1981.  Furthermore, when the series was released on video at the end of the decade, that sequence had a different score; clearly there had been a problem with the rights, so it had been replaced.  But I never forgot the tune, so when I heard it on Thursday night I practically leaped to my phone to discover its identity.  So here it is: Equinoxe, Part 4, by Jean-Michel Jarre.  The links above it were provided by Jesse Walker, Matt Welch, Wendy Lyon, Grace,  Popehat, Jillian Keenan, and Glenn Greenwald (in that order).

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

In the News (#590)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 25, 2015| 3 Comments »

Silly men…thought they were better than me…[but] I was smarter than all of them.  I made them pay the few coins that they had on my softness of my body.  –  Gladys, grandmother of Rachel Almeida

Real People My Grandma the Sex Worker

A young woman tells how she discovered her grandmother had been a sex worker:

…”I don’t want you to take sides, Rachel, but your mom’s family isn’t what you think it is.  They’ve lied to you.  Your grandma was a prostitute, and that’s how she met your grandpa.”  And that’s how my dad broke the news to me that my grandmother was a sex worker, and that my “childhood was a lie”(his words).  My initial reaction was that of a fairly-mature-but-still-naïve 16 year old: “Wow, Grandma was a hooker”…I didn’t feel disgusted or betrayed; I…thought it was badass and I wanted to be like her.  I tried to probe my dad about the details of the huge family secret he just revealed—very clearly only to spite my mother—but he said that was all he knew.  My dad kept holding his head in his hands, repeatedly saying, “You’d just never expect it; she doesn’t look like a prostitute,” as if sex workers even wear some kind of easily identifiable uniform…Seven years on from my parents’ divorce, I called my grandmother, Gladys, to talk about her past…I refused to let my Dad have the final say in her life story and what she’s been through.  When she picked up the phone, I could tell she was nervous to speak to me about this…She’s 82 now and lives a long way from appointment-only brothels of Caracas.  Down the phone, she told me her story with the same authority and confidence she had back then.  “If men have the right to pay for sex without judgment,” Grandma told me, “then women also have the right to make sex their career”…

Sales Pitch

The Swedish model has virtually eliminated prostitution in Sweden!

At least six teenagers who were living at a centre for vulnerable young women are reported to have sold sex, with staff doing little to intervene despite being aware of their actions.  Prostitution has been part of everyday life at the centre in Södertälje, south of Stockholm, for several years…Neighbours also reported spotting cars picking the teenagers up late at night…

Checklist

After Arizona and Washington, Florida is the state most hysterically tyrannical over “sex trafficking”:

A local nonprofit organization, Wings of Shelter, conducted a presentation in front of nearly 50 healthcare professionals…They taught them how to identify the signs of trafficking and how to treat the young victims they find in the schools…They said between 100,000 to 300,000 girls under the age of 18 are victims in the United States every year…the majority of these victims will visit a school nurse due to an injury sustained while trafficking…the three most obvious  physical signs are long sleeves, tattoos, and malnourishment.  The long sleeves are used to hide the marks of abuse and the tattoos may represent ownership in the form of a man’s name or a Chinese symbol…

That “long sleeves” bit comes straight from a Golden Age Wonder Woman comic book.

The Widening Gyre (#348)

Los Angeles’ response to “sex trafficking” is, as one might expect, increased police brutality:

A new human trafficking task force in the Valley has arrested several pimps and dozens of “Johns” in sting operations in the last two weeks…The LAPD Operation-Valley Bureau Human Trafficking Task Force was created to address the “massive influx of human trafficking cases”…said [cop mouthpiece] Marc Evans…“We have a large influx of hard-core gang members that are buying and selling girls on the streets in the form of prostitution”…the task force has [also]…issued 155 traffic citations and [stolen] 10 vehicles, he said. Evans [would] not say how many prostitutes had been arrested…In 2013, 1,077 prostitution victims were arrested by Los Angeles Police Department…

The cops’ idiotically convoluted language is so hard to follow that the reporter accidentally writes the truth by stating that the so-called “victims” (i.e. sex workers) were arrested instead of using one of the usual lies, “rescued” or “recovered”.

The Missing Word

Two brothers in…South Carolina are facing charges that they treated a mentally handicapped black employee like a slave for years…two Charleston attorneys filed a civil suit on behalf of Christopher Smith, who worked at the J&J Cafeteria…for 23 years, but was hideously abused and exploited from 2010 to 2014…[by] Ernest J…and…Bobby Paul Edwards…Smith worked at the Edwards brothers’ business for more than two decades, but it was when Bobby took over as manager in 2010 that Smith’s situation turned ugly.  Smith was…savagely beaten with a frying pan, hot tongs, butcher knives, belt buckles and fists.  He worked 18-hour shifts Monday through Saturday and 11-hour shifts on Sundays with no breaks, receiving little pay.  His total wages for each year added up to less than $3,000…When he wasn’t at work, Smith lived in a filthy, cockroach-infested apartment owned by the Edwards brothers…

Policing for Profit (#446) 

In New Mexico, civil forfeiture is big business…Albuquerque alone brings in more than $1 million through civil forfeiture every year.  Police and prosecutors seize all this property without convicting anyone of a crime—and then keep the property for their own use…This business..came to the public’s attention in late 2014, when an attorney charged with overseeing one city’s forfeiture programs described civil forfeiture as a “gold mine” and property seized through civil forfeiture as “little goodies”.  The resulting wave of public outrage brought landmark legislation, as the state legislature voted unanimously to abolish civil forfeiture…But cities across New Mexico are refusing to follow the law.  In Albuquerque, police and prosecutors…have even announced plans to purchase a new, bigger parking lot to hold all the cars they expect to seize—a parking lot that will be paid for through civil forfeiture…New Mexico Senators…Lisa Torraco and Daniel Ivey-Soto…have joined with the Institute for Justice to enforce the Forfeiture Reform Law…A decision forcing Albuquerque to follow the law will have implications across the state and even across the country…

A Year Later Jody Wilson Raybould

Fleur de Lit is a lot more optimistic than I am; I hope she’s right:

…our new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has appointed Jody Wilson-Raybould, an aboriginal woman…his justice minister…Wilson-Raybould says she’s been in discussions about Bill C-36 – which the Liberals have promised to repeal – and that in moving forward, “the safety of the workers is fundamentally important”…I am optimistic about this, specifically about [her] use of the word “workers”…

Traffic in Nonsense (#508)

The rhetoric is ridiculous, but even stupid snitches are dangerous:

…a fleet of truck drivers…are leading the charge in exposing the criminals behind these acts and in freeing victims…pimps often bring their victims to rest areas where they present the girls as willing sex workers, according to…Polaris Project [propaganda]…truck drivers, in many cases, have become [informants]…for authorities…seeking to [harass sex workers]…One group in particular, Truckers Against Trafficking, has already [indoctrinated] about 170,000 drivers in [anti-sex worker propaganda]…

Full of Themselves (#535)

What is it about massage parlors that brings the puritans out of the woodwork?

…Massage parlors that offer services well beyond backrubs are not unique to New Orleans…[they] have proliferated in the United States in recent years, expanding their foothold beyond the country’s coastal metropolises.  Though almost universally regarded by law enforcement as shady, the establishments have proved resistant to regulation…the New Orleans Police Department has sharply curtailed vice investigations as officers grapple with huge backlogs of emergency calls…officials said they are confident that erotic massage parlors remain a barely veiled front for prostitution…online [client] forums have been highlighted on social media in recent months by an organization called Lady Trieu, which has…also has posted photos of the cars of alleged johns parked in front of some of the businesses in an attempt to shame them…James Kelly…of Covenant House…said…“It’s degrading of women.  This is a lack of respect.  This isn’t something that you just dismiss”…The federal interest in erotic massage parlors typically hinges on whether investigators can prove the masseuses are being forced to sell their bodies against their will…

The “sex trafficking” rhetoric sprinkled into articles like this isn’t even enough to disguise the true motivations that drive the writers, cops and “activists”:  prudishness, control-freakishness and plain old ugly racism.

For Those Who Think Legalization is a Good Idea (#558)

…the All India Network of Sex Workers (AINSW), and other organisations are now…filing a petition before [the Supreme Court hears] a petition for [forcing] sex workers…[into brainwashing camps run] by anti-[sex worker] NGO Prajwala, set to be heard on December 9…“Sex workers…should be accepted and be able to live without stigma,” explains Amit Kumar, an AINSW national coordinator.  India has over three million sex workers but while they are increasingly accepted, they face ‘administrative problems’, says Kumar.  “When police raid a brothel or a sex worker’s house, they smash everything…they arrest every woman and ruin everyone’s lives”…Dr Jana, chief adviser to the Kolkata-based Usha Multipurpose Co-operative Society Ltd…says few women get into sex work because of coercion…

Between the Lines

And don’t think this is atypical:

During [the last “Operation Cross-Country”]…in Virginia, FBI and local [cops]…allegedly nabbed 12 “pimps“…along with the recovery of three “child sex trafficking victims”…two of the…suspects [were] released without charges…And…[another] was…only charged with gun and drug possession…two are juveniles.  And what about the three “children” police “rescued?”  One, a 16-year-old who was allegedly coerced into selling sex…went to police on her own accord…another…age 17, was willingly working in prostitution when she was arrested by police…In the course of this year’s OCC, the FBI helped Virginia vice squads arrest at least 30 people for prostitution, drug possession, and other non-violent or petty offenses…[such as] marijuana possession…driving on a suspended license…providing a false ID…outstanding warrant…and…providing false information to the police…

Now They Notice (#584)

Supporters of Rentboy need to do more than just protest; they’re going to need to literally put their money where their mouths are, because the government stole all of the money Rentboy could have used for its legal defense:

Staffers at a gay escort web site that was raided and shut down in August are trying to hammer out plea deals with prosecutors…Calling it a “digital Stonewall,” gay activists blasted the raid as a needless invasion of people’s private sexual lives and demanded that the raps be dropped.  Protesters — including several escorts who advertised on the site — massed outside of the Brooklyn federal courthouse after the arrests to voice their objections…

Little Tin Gods (#588)

None of this surprises me even one tiny bit:

For years, people in the tiny Louisiana town of Marksville watched the feud between their mayor and local judge like some kind of daytime soap opera…Then came the Nov. 3 shooting that killed a 6-year-old boy…Why in the world, residents ask, were deputy marshals — whose main job is serving court papers for the judge — out there chasing cars and shooting up suspects?  How did one of the deputies — who had been charged twice for aggravated rape and racked up a string of lawsuits accusing him of using excessive force — even get hired?  And how did a speck of a town like Marksville wind up with a shadow police force on its streets?…For years in Marksville, the marshal has been a local bus driver, Floyd Voinche Sr., who carried out his duties with one full-time employee and one part-timer…But sometime in the past two months, that changed…Voinche’s office bought two used police cruisers, hired several part-time deputies, and started patrolling the streets and issuing tickets like regular city police…Voinche has refused to explain his actions…citing a Louisiana law that empowers deputy marshals “in making arrests and preserving the peace”…

Read Full Post »

In the News (#580)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 17, 2015| 11 Comments »

What better way to stop people from trading sex for money than taking all their money away?  –  Jamie Peck

Celebrities

I’m nauseated every time the word “illegal” comes out of Dennis Hof’s mouth:

[Disgraced basketball star] Lamar Odom…was found…face down and alone…after spending four days at the Love Ranch…Odom started “throwing up all kinds of stuff” after a 911 operator told them to turn him on his side, Love Ranch owner Dennis Hof [said]…Odom had “spent time socializing with some of my girls,” but wasn’t seen taking any illegal drugs, Hof said…a brothel employee who called 911 reported Odom did cocaine Saturday and had taken up to 10 tabs of a sexual performance enhancer over the past three days…he was found unresponsive with blood coming from his nose and mouth…

Barbie Jane Goodall doll

More women badly in need of lives:

Wendy Tsao has created a collection of feminist dolls all women will want to play with.  Jane Goodall, J.K. Rowling and Malala Yousafzai stand among the ranks of Tsao’s “Mighty Dolls”, a collection of repurposed Bratz dolls meant to inspire young girls to greatness…Australian native Sonia Singh made waves earlier this year by repurposing used Bratz dolls to look like real girls.  She posted the transformations on her Tumblr page, Tree Change Dolls…[they] fetch anywhere from AU$300 (US $219) to AU$1,600 (US $1178) in auctions on eBay.  Tsao says she plans to list her “Mighty Dolls” on eBay in “a few weeks”…

Check Your Premises

Words can’t express how pleased I am to see so many reporters adopting this tone of late:

The police of Hoover, Alabama, provided a prime example of government hypocrisy recently when they claimed to be helping the “victims” of the sex trade…right after arresting seven women in a prostitution sting and releasing their names and photos to the public…Norman McDuffey conflated consensual sex work with sex trafficking and claimed the women he’d just arrested were victims…of the crime they’d just been arrested for…crimes [that cops pretend]…“go…along with prostitution”…have all been shown to decrease substantially when sex work is decriminalized…To use them as justification for further arrests is like pouring gasoline onto a fire and getting upset when it flares up…and then pouring on some more, because you still don’t get it…

Another Example of Swedish “Feminism”

Only the willfully ignorant imagine Sweden to be a “feminist” country:

…Undercover footage shot by reporters…showed doctors across the country agreeing to perform illegal tests for religious families to determine whether or not their daughters had had sex…Human rights groups have condemned the practice.  Liesl Gerntholtz, of the Human Rights Watch [said]…”In a country that internationally has played a leading role in protecting women’s human rights, it was almost unthinkable to me that this would be happening in a country like Sweden”…

Droit du Seigneur

Pimping underage girls is another of the crimes (like rape and domestic violence) that cops commit in far greater proportions than members of the general public:

…two [Chicago cops]…are accused of sex-trafficking a 14-year-old girl and there may have been other victims as well…[they] were first caught with child pornography, but as Internal Affairs investigators looked further into the case, they uncovered additional evidence the [pigs] had been using some online web pages to advertise the girl, or girls, for prostitution…

Dirty Amateurs

There should be a law forcing amateurs to get regularly tested for STIs:

…monogamy…isn’t necessarily any better for our health than being consensually nonmonogamous…consider the results of a study I recently published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine…people in consensually nonmonogamous relationships reported more lifetime sex partners than those who were monogamous (6.4 vs. 3.9, respectively)…about three-quarters of people in open relationships said they currently had multiple partners; however, it turned out that nearly one-quarter of monogamous participants did, too…compared to people in open relationships, monogamous people reported using condoms less often with all partners (primary and secondary) and were less likely to have ever been tested for STIs.  In other words, a large number of people in “monogamous” relationships were cheating, they weren’t telling their partners about it, they weren’t using protection reliably, and they weren’t getting tested to see whether they’d picked up any infections along the way…There was actually no difference between monogamous and consensually nonmonogamous participants in reported rates of sexually transmitted infections…

Saving Them From Themselves

A woman dares to challenge the nonsense that young women are asexual “children” without agency:

…I had [a webcam] arrangement with around five or six boys in my year at school when I was 13 years old…They would usually ask me to strip, sometimes half-naked, sometimes completely…After a blissful year of camming, my entire life as I knew it flipped on its head in the space of a day.  One of the boys told his mother, or maybe she found out some other way.  And despite my activities being more or less widely known throughout the male population of my year at school, the fact that it was now known outside of the sanctioned circle turned it unacceptable…Despite my peers and teachers unequivocally agreeing that what I had done was Wrong and Bad, I was never offered any form of comfort, guidance, or support at school.  At home, my diary was taken off me and analyzed for further evidence of sexual misconduct; a strict curfew and constant surveillance of my goings-on was put in place…in…my camming days, I remember being at peace with myself.  I wanted to be sexual.  I chose to engage in sexual activity…The camming never changed anything in me while it was happening; it was the reaction that destroyed my perception of myself and my sexuality…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#331) Playboy brand

“…instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder ‘censorship’, we call it ‘concern for commercial viability’.”  –  David Mamet

Playboy’s recent decision to stop publishing nude photos marks a watershed moment in media, as the porn pioneer buttons up and turns its back on what made it famous.  But the company’s core has had little to do with pornography for a long time…Over the course of a decade, Playboy has steadily transformed itself from a publishing company to a company that sells bunny drawings to T-shirt manufacturers.  Revenues from licensing Playboy merchandise went from $37 million in 2009 to $65 million in 2013…about half the company’s revenues at the time.  Dumping the brand’s association with nudity, however mild compared to online porn standards, gives it a better image in countries where government policies towards pornographers can be highly critical—which just happen to be the two most populous countries in the world…Playboy earns 40% of its revenues from China…“In…Asian markets, Playboy has positioned itself as a lifestyle brand for sophisticated, suave, fashion-conscious consumers by working with strong licensees in premium mass-market apparel, sportswear, eyewear etc,” said Torsten Stocker…at AT Kearney…magazine sales, on the other hand, have been a lost cause for some time…

Broken Record (#419)

Poor North Carolina; the only big event it can pretend to be a magnet for gypsy harlots is ludicrously pathetic:

Beginning Saturday and running through Oct. 22, an estimated 75,000 people will flock to High Point from around the world to buy, sell and market furniture, accessories and design services.  The twice-annual market is the largest furnishings industry trade show in the world…there’s a dark side to any temporary population boom…“The statistics show that any time there is a large gathering of people…victims of sex trafficking are usually brought in,” Sandra Johnson…of Triad Ladder of Hope [said]…

Gift Horse

Pay attention, sex worker activists; this is NOT a pro-decriminalization article but rather a pro-Swedish model one.  Swedish model proponents fraudulently refer to their evil, misogynistic regime as “decriminalization” in order to fool people into thinking it is supported by groups like Amnesty International, when in actuality it still criminalizes sex workers’ clients, partners, families and associates, infantilizes sex workers themselves and pathologizes our profession.  If the tragedy porn that makes up the bulk of this article and the penultimate line (“We should be focusing on arresting those who sell or buy victims of trafficking“) weren’t already dead giveaways, the source of the propaganda – Washington, DC “rescue” profiteers  FAIR Girls – should certainly have been.

It Looks Good On Paper (#543)

Once again: “safe harbor” laws are nothing but evil bullshit designed to distract the naive from the evils of criminalization:

…On 29 May, President Obama signed the Stop Exploitation Through Trafficking Act, which gives preferential consideration for some federal grants to states that have enacted a “safe harbor” law.  [Such] laws…universally require some form of law enforcement arrest or protective custody…being prosecuted for prostitution as a minor in family court in most states may result in court supervision and institutionalization in a geographically isolated and restrictive “staff secure” facility until the age of majority…In the prosecution of adult offenses, indeterminate commitment is regarded as unconstitutional, and even in juvenile criminal courts, it is generally seen as a drastic and final step.  By contrast, family courts often use indeterminate adjudications, effectively keeping non-criminal youth tied to the judicial system, which is what this new law would now impose on minors who…engaged in survival sex work…

Between the Lines

Most of this story is just the usual cop-fellating coverage of an “Operation Cross Country” pogrom, but I would like to point out that “We have dope guys that have stopped selling drugs and have started selling human beings” is just Copese for “we’re going to keep targeting the same people, but we’re using this new excuse because you’ve stopped swallowing the old one”.

Read Full Post »

In the News (#578)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 10, 2015| 7 Comments »

Equating the temporary, paid provision of sexual services to the “buying and selling of human beings”…only makes sense if you also think paying your hairdresser, landscaper, and barista are forms of slavery.
–  Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Good Fantasy, Bad Reality

I don’t think this is as much a “subculture” as it is a few isolated psychos inspired and encouraged by “sex trafficking” hysteria, and perhaps in some cases even created by it:

In March 2014, Steven Currence gave undercover agents a grand tour of the dungeon hidden inside his Montana home.  The subterranean hellhole contained a heavy wooden cross…The walls were covered in whips, chains, and torture devices.  Currence boasted of blacking out the windows to dash any hopes of escape…One kidnapped woman would sleep in the basement torture chamber, while the other would be chained to his bed—with a chain long enough to reach the bathroom…Currence believed he would soon purchase the women from the agents, who posed as human traffickers…the feds cuffed him two months later when he traveled to Arizona to buy two women at what he believed was a slave auction…he was one of four men nabbed in an FBI sting operation targeting an extreme slice of the human trafficking underworld: people seeking sexual and domestic slaves…The goal was to find any victims who might need to be rescued. “We didn’t find any victims…but the market is definitely there”…

If the market is “definitely there”, why didn’t they find any victims?

License to Rape

Cops raping sex workers is so ubiquitous, non-cop rapists often pose as cops to facilitate the crime:

Gary Mariner, the son of a one-time…police chief, used his dead father’s badge and a gun to intimidate a prostitute in Portland last month into [submitting to rape]…Mariner…picked up the 25-year-old [woman] in his car…and told her, “It’s not (your) lucky day,” as he showed her the…badge…He allegedly told the woman that he had been called back from retirement to work for the Maine State Police as part of a special prostitution unit…

Real People 

The title and lede say it all: “Escorts describe first day at work in Reddit thread that dispels misconceptions about sex work…The vast majority on the thread describe their experiences as positive”.  Naturally, this surprises stupid people despite the fact that women like me have been saying exactly the same thing forever.

Higher Education

An Italian porn actor and director is starting an academy to teach aspiring adult film actors and actresses the tricks of the trade…Rocco Siffredi…will document his training in the reality show, Universita del Porno to air in Italy…Classes will be in session on the set of “Siffredi Hard Academy,” in which the porn veteran will instruct a group of 21 hopefuls on different techniques and tactics on how to be a believeable porn actor on screen…

The Course of a Disease

One can never have too many anti-Swedish model editorials:

…the Nordic approach has been packaged as “progressive” and “woman-friendly”.  However, it is completely untenable on three grounds:  first, the evidence of Sweden’s “success” at stopping prostitution is deeply suspect; second, the dangers to women’s health and well-being are ignored; and third, “gender equality” becomes an imposition on people’s rights, namely, those established through contractual agreements…Prohibitionists have lauded the act’s achievements, claiming that it has reduced prostitution…deterred male clients and changed societal attitudes toward prostitution.  In reality, however, sex workers in Sweden have begun using other means to find clients, and vice versa…Sweden’s claim of “successfully” decreasing the demand for sexual services appears highly unlikely since it is impossible to monitor every transaction or sexual encounter…

Above the Law 

Fake rapist cops like the one in “License to Rape” above are often convicted; real ones usually aren’t:

A South Florida cop accused of raping a woman at gunpoint while on duty was acquitted…after a jury determined she had asked for it and was merely acting out a fantasy by allowing the cop to penetrate her as she bent over the hood of his car.  After all, defense attorneys argued, the woman had posed for a photo back in high school where she bent over the hood of a car with her hands behind her back in a “strikingly similar position” to how…Stephen Maiorino…raped her…it is not clear how the photo was even admitted as evidence…Maiorino [claimed] the sex was consensual.  And his attorneys said that he even gave her his business card, indicating that he wanted to continue having sex with her.  They also said that because he did not bother cleaning up the DNA evidence from his uniform after they had sex – or try to hide the used condom later found at the scene – then it was obviously consensual.  However, the woman denies receiving his business card and said she was afraid for her life…

So Close and Yet So Far

I guess Dick Cady is pretty credible, for what he is:

The veteran journalist who co-authored a book filled with explosive allegations against the University of Louisville men’s basketball program said…that the escort he wrote with is “pretty damn credible.”  Dick Cady, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist based in Indianapolis, insisted that Katina Powell — a Louisville prostitute who claims a former Louisville staff member paid thousands of dollars and gave game tickets to her and other escorts…to provide sexual services to players and recruits — “never tried to back down or amplify or gussy something up…Every time we hit her with a new question or an explanation, she came through…I thought she was pretty damn credible for what she was”…

Dutch Threat

What’s Dutch for “bottleneck effect”?

Sex workers without brothel licenses will soon risk a prison sentence of up to six months…the Act Regulating Prostitution (WRP)…[will] criminalize all sex workers without a license, including independent prostitutes and camgirls/camboys. This is the first time that the Netherlands has criminalized sex workers…Many prostitutes are willing to work legally, but…because municipalities refuse to issue permits to them, more and more sex workers choose to work without a permit, often from their own homes.  The WRP considers these…brothel owners (operators) without a permit and allows them to be punished as such…

Monsters 

Nope, no hate here:

A transgender woman…was attacked by a group of men before being fatally shot…Police are treating the case as a homicide — not a hate crime — though that could change as the investigation continues…[Kiesha] Jenkins was jumped by five to six men, physically assaulted, then shot in the back…

The Pro-Rape Coalition (#555) 

Take a good, hard look at who the “feminists” are in bed with:

The anti-porn activists at Morality in Media, recently rechristened the “National Center on Sexual Exploitation” (NCOSE), are launching a coordinated attack on human-rights organization Amnesty International (AI) for its support of decriminalizing prostitution…It’s also urging supporters to email, tweet at, and otherwise contact AI with the message: No Amnesty for Pimps…In NCOSE’s ideal world, protecting the “human rights or persons in prostitution” would involve throwing them, their employers, and their customers in prison…When not trying to diminish the human rights of sex workers, NCOSE also enjoys chastising the Department of Justice for not enforcing federal obscenity laws more aggressively, accusing shitty erotica of normalizing domestic violence, and calling out the American Library Association as a conduit for sexual exploitation…

Welcome To Our World (#559)

I’m awaiting apologies from those of you who doubted me:

…New York City nail salon owners and employees mobbed The New York Times’ office in protest of the paper’s coverage of their industry…Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir said she wanted to highlight the pervasive worker exploitation she [claimed] took place in the city’s Asian nail salons…New York authorities had been on a crusade since at least year to regulate nail salons more tightly…Nir’s article provided the impetus and public support enabling the city to do just that.  But you know who hasn’t been so psyched about the new worker “protections?”  The people who actually work at nail salons.  Because of citations and new regulations, some salons have been forced to close, costing the women who worked there their jobs.  Because of rules mandating extra pay for overtime work, manicurists saw hours cut back…

Business As Usual (#566)

Rapists sue because their names were revealed, thus warning potential victims:

Three [vice pigs] whose names were made public after prostitution busts at massage parlors are suing the city, county and state.  The [rapists]…claim that data on undercover officers is private and the defendants violated the Minnesota Data Practices Act…The prostitution busts got media attention when they were dismissed…after the judges said the [cops] went too far when they [raped] the [sex workers].  The police department has since suspended its use of undercover details in massage parlors.  The lawsuit says that since the [rapists’] names were disclosed, [they] and their families have received negative comments and have suffered “stress, anxiety, and emotional damage.”  [They] have also been harassed at work and their reputations have been damaged, the lawsuit claims…one of the [rapists] has been shamed because of [his committing rape] and “has been excluded from the ability to practice his religion [because rape is a sin]”…

FYI, the suppressed names of the three rapists are Steven Lecy, Christopher Reiter and Abubakar Muridi.

Where Are the Protests? (#576)

Well, that didn’t take long:

Motorists visiting car washes across North Wales are being “offered sex” by migrant gangs using them as a front for brothels…Such incidents are [claimed] to have occurred at three garages across the region with migrant workers allegedly inviting drivers to “go inside” and see two waiting women.  The head of a task force set up to crack down on human trafficking and modern-day slavery said there was a risk vulnerable people…could be targeted by unscrupulous traffickers who would force them into sex work…

Read Full Post »

In the News (#577)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 7, 2015| 34 Comments »

Mainstream feminism rejects sex work as an acceptable choice.  So…I don’t describe myself as an adherent to a political philosophy that wants to eliminate me.  –  Mistress Matisse

Five Women in Whitechapel 

Almost certainly not:

…They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper [is] more than 800 pages in length…Michael Maybrick was a hugely popular singer and composer in the Victorian era, who is virtually forgotten today – for reasons that Robinson believes are no accident…Maybrick was close friends with Sir Arthur Sullivan and the painter Frederick Leighton, among many other prominent public figures.  Both Sullivan and Leighton were Freemasons, as was Michael Maybrick.  He was…on the Supreme Grand Council of Freemasons, whose members also included the Prince of Wales…Maybrick was 47 at the time of the murders; a bachelor and, [author Bruce] Robinson believes, homosexual…

Yes, it’s a new version of the Masonic theory.

Above the Law rapist cop Jeff Sowers

When you’re a cop, rape becomes “official misconduct”:

A [Tennessee cop]…who resigned amid allegations of [raping prisoners]…pleaded guilty…to one count of official misconduct…Judge John Dugger sentenced Jeff Sowers to 18 months in jail…Dugger denied a request by Sowers’ attorneys for judicial diversion, which would have allowed for Sowers’ record to be expunged after his sentence…

The Pygmalion Fallacy

Such a lot of stupid writing on something that not only doesn’t exist, but will never exist in the way and on the timescale these idiots are wanking to the fantasy of:

…a recent report claims intimacy between robots and humans will be more common than that between two people by 2050.  The work, written by futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, purports that engaging in virtual sex acts will be as prevalent in 2030 as our engagement with porn today, and that the majority of people will own sex toys that employ an alternate reality in some way come 2035…

Storyville (#139)

…Over the last 150 years, rights for sex workers have…diminished, according to West Virginia University journalism professor Alison Bass.  In her book Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law…Bass surveys the history of laws regulating prostitution in America and abroad.  In the past and today, Bass finds, sex workers have been marginalized by stigma that portrays them as immoral, dangerous, even diseased figures. But while the stigma hasn’t changed, the laws have—in many cases…for the worse…

Dutch Threat

Lawheads are completely unable to comprehend the bottleneck effect:

Entrepreneurs in Amsterdam who want to open a brothel must speak at least one common language with the sex workers they rent space to, according to a…ruling handed down by the European Court of Justice.  The court [claimed] the decision as…a way to guarantee the safety of the women, [reduce] human trafficking, and…help prevent pimping…and [pretended it] was…not discriminatory in any way…the court also noted the Council of State’s notion that the seeming overreach in authority was meant as a protection of public order, and that being able to converse with a sex worker allows a brothel owner the possibility of stopping child prostitution…

Dysphemisms Galore 

Because nobody would care about a headline reading, “Man minds his daughter while mother works”:

A Michigan man held his 9-month-old daughter in a motel room while the baby’s mother had sex with another man for money…Derohn Wilburn…is charged with…felony promoting prostitution and misdemeanor child endangering…Melissa Coleman…is charged with misdemeanor child endangering and prostitution…police released the baby to a family member.  She was unharmed…

Played Out

I don’t know who Robert Fullinwider is, but I thank him for taking the time to read through Moran’s drek so as to be able to rip it to shreds:

…Moran is not content to offer her particular life-story…She also sets herself up as the Universal Prostitute, a woman whose experiences define prostitution and trump the “experiences” of anyone else — sex worker, academic, or otherwise — who views prostitution differently than she does. She is not content to let her story speak for itself but instructs the reader on the proper conclusions to draw, and engages in arguments based on her experiences and “research”…Moran writes: prostitutes are “coerced” into prostitution (pp. 49, 227); they have no “choice” (p. 161); they have no “free will” (p. 201); they act out of “desperation” and “destitution” (pp. 43, 96)…Moran…[claims] she didn’t consent to prostitution because “it is not possible to consent to a lifestyle you don’t comprehend” (p. 50).  Yes it is.  People do it all the time.  “I didn’t know marriage was going to be like this!”  “I didn’t know how stressful being a parent would be!”  “I didn’t know military life would be this tough!”  [She claims] she didn’t consent to prostitution because she wasn’t an adult and children can’t consent (pp. 50-51).  Yes they can.  Society frames laws that say people below certain ages can’t “consent” – to contracts, to mortgages, to sexual relations, and the like – but the “no consent” here is a legal fiction…a sixteen year-old girl who finds prostitution utterly repulsive, revolting, and disgusting, and who is “desperate to escape,” yet who passes up on an opportunity to get out of the trade because she’s unwilling to be bound by any rules, is a person who’s made a choice— a bad choice, to be sure, but a real choice…Moran…speaks of allowing herself to be coerced (an odd locution) into prostitution by her boyfriend.  What did her boyfriend do?  Did he beat her?  Did he threaten her?  No, he “suggested” that she turn tricks; he “encouraged” her (pp. 47, 186)…Moran seems to think you haven’t acted freely unless you are as happy as a lark with what you’ve chosen (p. 227); that you are not self-determining unless you are “controlling the totality of your life” (p. 175).  These are just fundamentally unserious engagements with the notions of freedom and self-determination.  We always act under constraints, we never control the totality of our lives, and we are often unhappy with what we’ve chosen, just less unhappy than with the alternatives…

Rooted in Racism (#429)

Sweden’s “liberal reputation” is bullshit:

…a recent report by the United Nations…concludes that a rising level of racist violence and “Afrophobic” hate crimes in Sweden are “an extensive social problem”.  “There continues to be a general Swedish self-perception of being a tolerant and humane society, which makes it difficult to accept that there could be structural and institutional racism faced by people of African descent,” says the report…The country’s official [lie] of equality and respect for human rights “blinds” it to the racism faced by African-Swedes, it says.  Hate crimes against the 200,000 or so black people…in Sweden increased by more than 40% between 2008 and 2014…with more than a fifth of incidents last year involving violence…

On the Simultaneous Having and Eating of Cake (#505)

On Working It, the magazine at the center of the stripper labor rights movement in Portland:

…Each magazine brings together about 50 pages of writing and art by sex workers from around the country.  In addition to permanent sections including “Client Hall of Shame” “Best/Worst Tip$” “Tales from your Shift” and art, each volume of Working It has a theme…After Danzine went dormant, [Matilda] Bickers and Portland’s sex worker activism also went relatively dormant.  [SWOP] took over Danzine’s bad date list.  In 2005, Bickers and her friends tried to start a dancer union — “but that failed miserably, and I was really burnt out for a while,” Bickers says.  In the following years, Bickers worked at strip clubs and…graduated from Portland State University.  “I kind of never stopped doing sex worker activism,” Bickers says…

Neither Addiction Nor Epidemic (#550)

The history of the concept of sex addiction is a complex, somewhat contentious one…I’ve often cited the concept back to the initial writings of Patrick Carnes…Now, three New Zealand historians have contributed a wealth of astounding, rich and often surprising information to the issue…Sex Addiction, A Critical History…represents a remarkable detailing of the troubling, often hidden, history of this concept…Reay and his coauthors found powerful writings by Hatterer from the 1960’s and 70’s, where he blamed a sexually addictive process for sexual excesses. Powerfully, they detail [Dr. Lawrence] Hatterer’s disturbing history of treating homosexuality as an illness, and the way he treated homosexuality “like an alcoholic”…in his writings…from its inception, the concept of sex addiction has been applied to treatment of homosexuality as an illness…

If You Want Something Done Right…

I have the most awesome friends:

…Mistress Matisse…heard about Heather’s experience and was determined to help.  Through other sex workers she tracked Heather down, called her and booked a flight to West Virginia.  She showed up at Heather’s door…organized fund-raising, lined up medical assistance and connected Heather with nonprofit help.  This isn’t a new role for Matisse.  She’s worked as a sex worker in various capacities since she was 19.  But as she’s gotten established in Seattle, she says, “I have gotten to the point in my career where it is in many ways self-sustaining.”  As a result, she’s had more time to devote to activism.  Matisse was there to help Heather because she’s made it her business to help sex workers who are in crises.  I talked to Matisse about her activism, her work with Heather and why sex workers are the best ones to help sex workers…

Amnesty At Last

Here’s an NPR show which purports to present a “discussion” of the Amnesty International position statement on decriminalization, but which was designed from the get-go to promote prohibitionist propaganda by stacking the panel three to one (Swanee Hunt, Rachel Moran and Andrea Powell) vs. Maxine Doogan.  Unfortunately for the antis, Maxine had logic and facts on her side and acquitted herself quite well.  What you won’t hear:  Sol Finer of SWOP-Seattle called into the live show and Moran absolutely lost her mind, screaming and shouting at Sol in such a clearly unbalanced manner that the tirade was edited out of the archived version of the show.  So much for NPR’s commitment to the truth.

New Excuse (#576)

Read Full Post »

In the News (#531)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 22, 2015| 4 Comments »

When sex workers or former sex workers write as academics, their voices can’t be reduced solely to sex.  –  Noah Berlatsky

The Proper Study

Noah Berlatsky on sex workers conducting our own research:

Melissa Gira Grant…is not alone; there are many sex workers and former sex workers who research and analyze sex work from an analytical perspective.  Author, media consultant, and former sex worker Maggie McNeill, for example, discusses common myths about human trafficking…The Red Umbrella Project, a peer-led sex worker advocacy organization, conducted a study of New York City trafficking courts that found police were disproportionately targeting black sex workers and using racial profiling to make arrests…Tara Burns…researched Alaska’s trafficking laws while working toward her Master’s in social justice…Christina Parreira…has continued to work as a sex worker while also pursuing a Ph.D. in sociology…she has…interviewed other workers about how they understand their work…dropbox logo

Saving Them From Themselves

…Missouri law enforcement is serving cloud-storage site Dropbox with a search warrant for an account used by area teens suspected of sexting…after school officials heard rumors that students were sharing nude photos via phones and Dropbox…cops interviewed students and seized some of their cell phones.  And what did they find?  No pics.  But…with just a little more privacy infringement, they’re certain they can turn up some nude teen photos…

King of the Hill

Two for one!  “Michigan ranks No. 2 for human trafficking sex trade behind only Nevada…”

If Men Were Angels

A chiropractor in…Iowa…has had his license pulled after being accused of trading services for sex with clients and for performing exorcisms…Dr. Charles Manuel voluntarily surrendered his license after the Iowa Board of Chiropractic accused him of unethical conduct…The board also stated that Manuel had instructed some of his patients to stop taking their prescribed medications…

Schadenfreude (#434) 

Voice of America has followed the party line on “sex trafficking” thus far, so it’s nice to see them publishing an interview with super ally Anne Elizabeth Moore:

The garment industry, because there are so few employment options for women, creates this sense of an almost economic imperative..in the U.S. we talk a lot about how horrible it is for women and the sex industry in Cambodia, and how they all are trafficked.  And all the reports are about quoting Somaly Mam, who of course…spent a lot of time talking about how everyone that she worked with in her various foundations was a victim of sex trafficking, when you actually talk to the people that live in her shelters, and/or sought assistance from her, or even people who were…involved in…anti-trafficking organizations elsewhere, what you discover is actually that most of them are not victims of trafficking.  Most of them identified as people who were working either in the sex industry or another industry.  And the opportunity provided to them by the anti-trafficking organizations was simply better than their continued labor in that industry…

Served Cold

Utah based Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) has attracted a great deal of attention since it was first endorsed by Glenn Beck…This new addition to the already crowded field of anti-trafficking organisations “us[es] cutting-edge computer technology…[to] go into the darkest corners of the world to…liberate enslaved children and dismantle the criminal networks.”  It is this type of language that identifies OUR as yet another disturbing example of a “raid-and-rescue” organisation…these interventions represent the latest version of the “white man’s burden”…OUR takes things one step further by sending, essentially, gun-toting vigilantes to foreign countries in the pursuit of “hope and freedom” for enslaved children…

Buttons, Bags & Banknotes (#445) clogs

It would be hard to imagine a more unintentionally-revealing example of mental masturbation than this attempt to entangle the supposed morality of overpriced clogs with welfare-state propaganda and dangerously-prudish Sweden’s wholly-undeserved reputation for sexiness:

Blixt’s wooden shoes are not just “hasbeens’ because of the retro style – it’s also a comeback of retro Swedish sexiness – not the stereotype, but rather the truth.  Outdated stereotypes of Sweden as overly sexualized have reigned for too long.   “I think it’s a misunderstanding,” Blixt remarks. “Sex is one thing, and a naked body is something else; it’s natural.”  When Blixt talks about sexy shoes, she’s speaking of classic Swedish values.  In other words: au natural…Made only with natural materials in good work situations, the shoes are sustainable, durable, and handmade…“We are actually raised to be creative in Sweden, and it’s easy to start a company here with our free education, access to social security, funding and young people who dare to think big,” Blixt reflects. “People learn to dare and believe in their ideas, and that is our hope for the future”…

The smugness is so thick one could cut it with a knife.

Guinea Pigs 

Another software package designed to sell whores out to the cops:

Rescue Forensics claims it “archives massive quantities of data from classified advertisement sites specializing in commercial sex ads.”  It gathers a lot of text, and even more nude and semi-nude photos.  Then it turns all that over to the cops…what Rescue Forensics appears to be selling is just one more tool to help cops track people engaged in sex work through their online activities…there’s a good chance that if you’ve placed an ad online in the last two years for escorting, massage, BDSM, stripping, private modeling, nude housekeeping, selling your underwear, or any other permutation of the various sexual services people can put on offer, Rescue Forensics has a copy.  And because Rescue Forensics has a copy, so do their users in law enforcement…for Dalton, the fight against trafficking isn’t just about finding the people Rescue Forensics believes are “exploited”:  It’s about abolition…Dalton was a policy advisor to Shared Hope International…Dalton himself acknowledges what they’ve built isn’t enough to identify someone who has been trafficked into sex work, and that there’s no way to tell from an ad if someone is forced or coerced…Dalton still stands to profit from a product that can’t make that distinction, placed in the hands of law enforcement officers who…routinely…harass and arrest sex workers…

Worse Than I Thought (#525)

Bad laws never die, even if they appear to have been staked and beheaded:

U.S. Senators…reached a deal on legislation addressing human trafficking.  Passage of the “Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act”…had been delayed for several weeks due to a partisan dispute over abortion funding for trafficking victims.  CBS News explains the complicated compromise, which ultimately does not allow funds allocated under the bill to go toward abortions…there’s still a chance that political maneuvering could doom the legislation…if Republicans force a vote on controversial amendments concerning immigration and other issues…

Precedent

There’s a saying in American politics:  As California goes, so goes the nation.  If that’s true, we may be at the start of a nationwide fight to decriminalize sex work.  The Erotic Service Provider Legal, Education, and Research Project (ESPLERP) filed a federal lawsuit on March 4 that seeks to overturn the criminalization of prostitution in California by arguing that the ban is unconstitutional…because it hinders sex workers’ rights to participate in private and consensual activities…If the lawsuit is successful, California could become the tipping point for the decriminalization of sex work nationwide…the decriminalization argument will acquire powerful legal precedent in the most populous state in the country…it could move the conversation forward even if it fails…The state will almost certainly use trumped-up concerns over human trafficking to put the lawsuit to rest…But…nearly 40 million people live in California.  To even put this issue on the political radar of that many people is a revolutionary act…

Read Full Post »

Links #248

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 6, 2015| 6 Comments »

I don’t understand the logic.  -Anders Varveus

So this week the internet went out in our entire building, and it won’t be fixed until tomorrow; I finished Saturday’s & yesterday’s columns on my laptop in a local pub, and I had to finish this one via cell connection so if there are formatting issues, that’s why. The links below are from Emma Evans (“headline”), Jasper Gregory  (“lose”), Radley Balko (“laws”), Grace (“call”), and Wendy Lyon  (“spontaneous”). The video is the first in Jae‘s favorite YouTube series; they’re really extremely clever & well-done.

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

Links #247

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2015| 8 Comments »

The students do NOT have to eat the Oreo if they do not wish to do so.  –  Mrs. Porter

I’m slowly beginning to catch up, though I still have quite a way to go to be comfortable with my work schedule.  This week’s video was supplied by Popehat, who also provided “protect” and “Jew”; the links above the video came from Wendy Lyon (“resistance”), Jasper Gregory (“cookie”), and Jesse Walker (“911”).

From the Archives

Read Full Post »

In the News (#518)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2015| 10 Comments »

If [rescuers]…used my photo in websites, smiling, showing me sewing clothes I couldn’t even afford, I would want someone to at least say, “Yeah, that is bullshit.”  –  Sarah Miller

Do As I Say, Not As I Do 

TANSTAAFL:

The police chief in Miami Gardens has been fired after he was arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitution…Stephen Johnson was [caught in a sting after buying the absurd claim that]…the price for…two women would be $100 for 30 minutes…

Feminine Pragmatism 

More than 70% of UK sex workers have previously worked in healthcare, education or charities, while more than a third hold university degrees, according to one of the largest surveys of the industry ever undertaken…The second most common former area of employment was retail, with…33.7%…38% [had an undergraduate degree]…while…17%…had a postgraduate degree…The Leeds University study [was] carried out by Dr Teela Sanders in partnership with National Ugly Mugs…

Down Under

A man who became obsessed with a prostitute and launched a rash of lawsuits against her…has had his case shot down in the Supreme Court [of New Zealand].  The client and the sex worker were in an “arrangement” that turned sour some three years ago…when the Auckland woman [realized] her client was stalking her…

The Sky is Falling!

Any gap between a country’s sex work laws and total decriminalization gives the cops room for a campaign of persecution against sexual behavior:

A popular “sugar daddy” dating website that links young women with wealthy older men…may break sex work laws, [Austalian] police have [bloviated]…In Victoria escorts must be registered, and in South Australia it is illegal to pay…for sex…South Australia Police [pretend to be concerned about “dangerous situations”, and]…Victoria Police [threatened to “look] at [the sites] closely”…

Profit from Panic Punjammies

The rescue industry is getting so absurd, even Jezebel can see it:

…Punjammies is just one of many companies selling goods made by former sex slaves.  There’s also the Nomi Network—their tagline is “Buy Her Bag Not Her Body,” a deployment of rhetoric implying she’s going to have to sell one or the other, and she is dependent on your choice to seal her fate.  There’s Purpose Jewelry, “handcrafted by survivors of modern day slavery… each jewelry tag is hand-signed by the girl who created it.”  There’s JC Denim, “handcrafted by girls who have been rescued out of sex slavery.”  One more—just for the pun—a soap brand, Trades of Hope made by women who “have made a clean break from their previous lifestyle in the sex trade…”  Punjammie fans…are proud of the work they’re doing by buying and wearing Punjammies.  You see a lot of words and phrases like empower, good deed, and making a difference…

Broken Record

There’s something especially funny about Sweden picking this up while the rest of the West is admitting it’s hokum:

The Ski World Cup in Sweden has been a worldwide party…But behind the scenes police have been battling a rise in prostitution…“The phenomenon is bigger than we think, there are large hidden numbers” [said a trained police parrot]…”We have received information…that this…is…a…bigger problem during the World Cup than…normal…”

The End of the Beginning

…the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the residence restrictions automatically imposed on sex offenders by state law are unconstitutional…the law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, without regard to the nature of the crimes they committed or the threat they currently pose…the 2,000-foot rule excludes 97 percent of the land zoned for multifamily housing in San Diego County…residence restrictions…often apply even if an offender’s crime had nothing to do with children, [and] can be so extensive that entire cities are effectively off limits…

Vendetta

You may not be able to spot it for all the cop-worship and badge-licking, so I’ll help you: “The CEASE Network” is just another front for Swanee Hunt’s “Demand Abolition” pogrom-funding program:  “CEASE, an acronym for Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation, got its official start in Boston, Denver and Seattle earlier this year, with seven more cities — including Portland, Chicago and Phoenix — set to launch their own initiatives later this month…”  This article is several months old, but I think it’s important to track the growth of this private war conducted to please the bloodlust of a morally-warped multi-billionaire.

An Example To the West (#343)

A Bangkok Post article from the director of EMPOWER:

Every year without fail for over a decade, Thailand has been scolded by the United States for not doing enough to comply with US anti-trafficking and border control policies in its annual Trafficking in Persons report…To show that Thailand is doing its job to tackle human trafficking in the sex industry, every year a few hundred migrants, mostly young women, are rounded up, detained and deported as victims…It will never be possible to use harsh laws and punishment to stop people moving across borders for better lives…

Not Good Enough

I honestly have to wonder if Emily Nagoski hasn’t been reading me:

…Flibanserin…is a drug intended to treat low sexual desire in women.  The F.D.A. has rejected it twice already, and will most likely reject it a third time…the drug…is…attempting to treat something that isn’t a disease…The previous model, originating in the late ’70s…placed sexual desire first, as if it were a hunger, motivating an individual to pursue satisfaction.  Desire was conceptualized as emerging more or less “spontaneously.”  And some people do feel they experience desire that way.  Desire first, then arousal.  But…many people (perhaps especially women)…experience desire as…emerging in response to, rather than in anticipation of, erotic stimulation.  Arousal first, then desire…What these women need is not medical treatment, but a thoughtful exploration of what creates desire between them and their partners…Feeling judged or broken for their sexuality is exactly what they don’t need — and what will make their desire for sex genuinely shut down…

Worse Than I Thought (Traffic Updates) IM propaganda

The fetish for posting silly “sex trafficking” signs in stigmatized businesses has been growing for a while now, but this the first time I’ve seen magic powers attributed to the placards:

Lawmakers are introducing a new bill…[which “creates signs to free sex slaves”] across Florida.  The bill would require new signs that tell victims how to get…rescued [from] truck stops, massage parlors, and other places where human trafficking victims are forced into sex slavery…

Another Fine Mess

Yet another edition of “OMG WHORES KNOW HOW TO USE THE INTERNET!!!!”

…Pornography…spurred the adoption of…VHS tapes, interactive CDs and DVDs, and pretty much the entire Internet.  Now it’s coming to your smartphone in a whole new way, thanks to…Snapchat…the service unveiled a feature called Snapcash, which allows people to send money using Square…Strippers and porn stars have started to use Snapchat to send videos and photos of themselves naked for a small fee…Snapchat doesn’t leave anything in your search history.  There’s no trace of it to be found by a snooping significant other or an overprotective parent…

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »